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ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 

ACCEPTING THE MONUMENT IN 

MEMORY OF THE CONFEDERATE 

DEAD AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL 

CEMETERY 



JUNE 4, 1914 




WASHINGTON 
1914 







n; OF 0. 

Jl'N 22 {314 






ADDRESS. 



Mr. Chairman, Mrs. McLaurin Stevens, Ladies and 

Gentlemen : 

1 assure you that I am profoundly aware of the 
solemn significance of the thing that has now taken 
place. The Daughters of the Confederacy have pre- 
sented a memorial of their dead to the Government of 
the United States. I hope that you have noted the his- 
tory of the conception of this idea. It was proposed 
by a President of the United States who had himself 
been a distinguished officer in the Union Army. It 
was authorized by an act of Congress of the United 
States. The corner stone of the monument was laid 
by a President of the United States elevated to his posi- 
tion by the votes of the party which had chiefly prided 
itself upon sustaining the war for the Union. And, 
now, it has fallen to my lot to accept in the name of 
the great Government which I am privileged for the 
time to represent this emblem of a reunited people. I 
am not so much happy as proud to participate in this 
capacity on such an occasion, — proud that I should rep- 
resent such a people. Am I mistaken, ladies and gentle- 
men, in supposing that nothing of this sort could have 
occurred in anything but a democracy? The people of 
a democracy are not related to their rulers as subjects 
are related to a government. They are themselves the 
sovereign authority, and as they are neighbors of each 

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other, quickened by the same influences and moved by 
the same motives, they can understand each other. 
They are shot through witli some of the deepest and 
profoundest instincts of human sympathy. They 
choose their governments; they select their rulers; they 
live their own life, and they will not have that life 
disturbed and discolored by fraternal misunderstand- 
ings. I know that a reuniting of spirits like this can 
take place more quickly in our time than in any other 
because men are now united by an easier transmission 
of those influences which make up the foundations of 
peace and of mutual understanding, but no process 
can work these effects unless there is a conducting me- 
dium. The conducting medium in this instance is the 
united heart of a great people. I am not going to 
detain you by trying to repeat any of the eloquent 
thoughts which have moved us this afternoon, for I 
rejoice in the simplicity of the task which is assigned 
tome. My privilege is this, ladies and gentlemen: To 
declare this chapter in the history of the United States 
closed and ended, and I bid you turn with me'with your 
faces to the future, quickened by the memories of the 
past, but with nothing to do with the contests of the past, 
knowing, as we have shed our blood upon opposite 
sides, we now face and admire one another. I do not 
know how many years ago it was that the Century 
Dictionary was published, but 1 remember one day in 
the Century Cyclopedia of Names I had occasion to 
turn to the name of Robert E. Lee, and I found him 
there in that book published in New York City simply 
described as a great American general. The gener- 
osity of our judgments did not begin to-day. The gener- 
osity of our judgment was made up soon after this 
great struggle was over. Men came and sat together 



again in the Congress and united in all the efforts of 
J peace and of government, and our solemn duty is to 
see that each one of us is in his own consciousness and 
in his own conduct a replica of this great reunited 
people. It is our duty and our privilege to be like the 
country we represent and, speaking no word of malice, 
no word of criticism even, stand shoulder to shoulder 
to lift the burdens of mankind in the future and show 
tiie paths of freedom to all the world. 



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